April 21, 2012

Dodecahedron - Dodecahedron

The self titled debut album from Dodecahedron is available on Bandcamp. The band is from Netherlands and they play black metal. But this is far from your typical black metal album. It has been described simply as atonal chamber metal, it is certainly

Cover art by M. Eikenaar.

The self titled debut album from Dodecahedron is available on Bandcamp. The band is from Netherlands and they play black metal. But this is far from your typical take on the genre. It has been described simply as atonal chamber metal, and it is certainly a progressive, technical, and extreme take on black metal.

Dodecahedron's musicianship is impressive and their songwriting is complex, but not too complex. As Dan Obstkrieg explains it in this review from Last Rites:

"each song has a primary riff or motif that is artfully introduced, developed, twisted, and reused, meaning that the songs never devolve into thoughtlessly cut-and-pasted riff-buckets"

Under the dissonance small melodic parts occasionally pop up, you even get a few quite headbangable passages. For me the album hits a sweet spot between cacaphony and harmony. As Jimmy Rowe puts it in the Heavy Blog is Heavy review:

"The band ultimately weaves almost atonal guitar melodies out of chaos into something strangely captivating and triumphant"